Page 275 of Scarlet Wars
Gordon didn’t look away from the crib. “I’ll heal her if anything goes wrong. She has my blood running through her veins. That must count for something.”
I screamed inside my head as I watched Gordon take out and cradle the baby again. Cradleme.
Julian sighed, more annoyed than concerned. “Fine. Your call. But if anything goes wrong, you leave my name out of it.”
Gordon didn’t even bother to reply.
Next thing, Julian’s dark red haze flickered to life, curling through the air like smoke. My throat seized as it snaked toward the baby, towardme.
The small body jerked violently as the haze sank into her skin. I watched as I convulsed in Gordon’s arms. My small limbs stiffened. A thin, broken cry wrenched from my mouth. My newborn form twisted, arching painfully, as Gordon’s arms tightened around me.
Julian’s haze grew darker. More aggressive. It thrashed around the baby, around Gordon’s hands, until the entire room pulsed with violent energy.
And then, the crying stopped.
The newborn’s chest rose and fell. My tiny hands twitched. My eyes squeezed shut, then opened. Dark blue and unmistakably awake.
“She’s alive?” Julian’s breath hitched.
Gordon simply smiled. “Of course she is.” His gaze lingered on the baby’s face. My face. “She’s indestructible. Exactly like her mother. And she’ll be more powerful than any other magi.”
Julian’s eyes darkened. “And be hunted for it.”
Gordon’s smile vanished. His gaze hardened, fixing on Julian with quiet menace. “You may return to Australia. I’ve had enough of your incessant thoughts on the matter.”
Julian’s mouth twitched into something close to a smirk. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
He portaled out without so much as a glance in the baby’s direction.
Right as I puked my guts out onto the marble floor.
SIXTY
EMMA
My knees hit the ground with a painful crack. Acid still burned up my throat, and tears stung my eyes as the room spun around me. My hands dug into the floor, trying to ground myself, but the bile kept rising, the horror twisting deeper into my chest.
When I finally forced myself to rise to my feet, the blue portal was already waiting. A thin, shimmering line of energy spiraling at the edge of the room.
I didn’t hesitate, and jumped through, more than eager to leave the past behind.
Back in the present, my hands were still shaking, as I turned to face the man responsible for my next set of nightmares. “You wanted me to have magic… That’s why you asked Julian to force the True Bond on me?”
Gordon nodded once. “Yes.”
I blinked up at him. This man gave melife. And thenstoleit to make me fit.
“All of this, just so I wouldn’t be human.”
“So you wouldn’t beweak,” he snapped back. “So you wouldn’t die of something pointless like old age. So my own daughter would have a fucking chance of surviving in a world hell-bent on war.”
“You don’t even care you did this to me, do you?”
“I care that you survived.”
My head spun, the room tilting slightly beneath my feet, while a thousand questions clawed at my throat.
“How? How did Isurvive Julian mind-raping me?”
